UW Major: Information Systems
Cofounder, Origin
Ross Freedman’s origin story as an entrepreneur started during move-in weekend his freshman year at the UW, where he met his friend and long-time business partner Brad Schneider ’97 in the elevator of their dorm. That also happened to be the year the internet started to permeate our lives, as UW students were offered a campus email address and access to a web browser for the first time. Freedman soon developed a personal interest in the emerging technologies that powered the internet, which deeply influenced his coursework at the Wisconsin School of Business.
After graduation, Freedman began his career as a software developer focused on web-based solutions for Fortune 500 companies, but it didn’t take long for him to feel the entrepreneurial pull to launch his own tech company. In 2000, he and Schneider founded Wired Matrix, a systems integration company that merged into West Monroe, a prominent Chicago-based consultancy, in 2002. In 2007, Freedman and Schneider again partnered to create Rightpoint, a consulting firm that helped clients accelerate digital transformation through a human-centric lens.
As co-CEO of Rightpoint, Freedman prioritized building a positive work environment where designers and engineers were encouraged to be creative and intrapreneurial. The result was explosive growth, and Rightpoint expanded into an international firm with 12 offices worldwide and more than 800 employees. In 2019, Rightpoint was sold to Genpact (NYSE:G), a global technology-services company with 100,000 employees.
The sale offered Freedman time to reflect and consider his next challenge. “I finally got to that point in my career where I had some mental space and freedom, so I went back to the university and found different ways to engage,” he says. He joined the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship’s WAVE Advisory Board, and UW professor of risk management Joan Schmidt ’78, MBA’79 recruited him to become a mentor for the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), a business accelerator program. In 2023, Freedman was named CDL’s Mentor of the Year. Additionally, he created a new UW business community called Badgers in Tech to help students and alumni network through regional hubs across the nation’s booming tech industry.
In 2024, Freedman cofounded what will likely be his next high point: Origin, a data-experience company born in the “AI era” shaping the future of analytics, AI, and automation. To begin, Freedman is especially interested in health care and financial services, industries where proper data governance is essential and the stakes for accurate and ethical AI-implementation are especially high.
“We’re optimistic about how AI and data will play a role in our lives,” he says. “Our goal at Origin is to augment human intelligence — not replace it. We will accelerate knowledge by providing the tools and infrastructure that people need to do more and to achieve more with AI.” He compares Origin’s role to the companies that produced picks and shovels during the 1800s Gold Rush. “The companies that made those picks and shovels really were the ones who helped drive the Gold Rush forward, not necessarily the people who were digging for gold themselves,” he says. “Origin is part of the picks and shovels of the AI revolution, the company that is helping to enable AI in a positive and productive way for others.”
